Ice skating and inline skating are rather unique forms of human locomotion. There a variety of sports that utilize ice (or inline) skates such as, for example, speed skating, hockey, and figure skating. A skate boot is generally constructed of a material upper (e.g., leather and/or other synthetic material) adhered to a last board. The base is bonded to an outer sole made of plastic, rubber, or composite fibers, which effectively sandwiches the folded edge of the material upper between the last board and the outer sole. The rigid parts of the skate boot are comprised of the sole piece and a counter piece, which in combination provide the support structure of the footwear.
Recently, the sport of hockey has demanded improved skate boot technology to allow athletes to reach higher speeds and/or accelerate faster. As such, many recent hockey skate designs have borrowed technology from speed skating for improved performance. For example, speed skates are known to be comprised of a stiff shell structure 100 such as the structure identified in FIG. 1. As shown, the shell structure 100 is a unitary structure that includes a rear portion 102 and bottom portion 104. The rear portion 102 is formed to cover the rear half of a human foot including the heel. The bottom portion 104 is attached to a skate blade at points 106, 108. Because of the unitary design of shell structure 100, lateral energy is not wasted when a skater pushes from side to side and thus the skater can realize increased speeds. In addition, as shown, the shell structure 100 only partially covers a human ankle and tapers toward the rear of the skate to give the skater improved range of motion of the foot. For example, when using the shell structure 100, the skater can move their foot up, down, left, and right. This increased movement, due to the shell structure 100 partially covering the ankle, can also improve the skaters speed and/or acceleration. Although, the shell structure 100 can improve a skaters speed and/or acceleration, it is not practical for hockey because the design does not include many desired safety features required to protect the skater from impacts such as from, inter alia, pucks, sticks, and skate blades.
One common safety feature of a hockey skate is a tendon guard. Tendon guards are usually permanently attached to a rear of the skate that extends above a skater's ankle and extend upward therefrom in order to protect the skaters tendon from impacts. Although tendon guards serve a useful purpose, they can reduce movement of a skater's foot most notably upward and downward movement (e.g., dorsiflexion and planarflexion), which is undesirable.
Some skates have a tendon guard that is more flexible than the outer shell of the skate allowing the tendon guard to flex backwards and thus improving the movement of the skater's foot. These tendon guards are attached to the top of an ankle portion of the outer shell in a variety of ways such as, for example, via stitching, over molding, thermal bonding, high frequency welding, vibration welding, piping, zipper, adhesive, and staples. Accordingly, these tendon guards flex at the point of attachment, which can provide increased mobility of the skater's foot. However, movement of the skater's foot is still somewhat restricted because the ankle portion of the stiff outer shell covers the lower portion of the skater's Achilles tendon.
Accordingly, a need exists for an improved skate boot that can increase a skater's speed and acceleration while still providing adequate ankle support and protection for impact sports such as hockey.